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LA Zine Fest: A punk rock celebration of the power of paper

By Hayley FoxPublished: Tuesday, February 14, 2012, at 10:23AM

Hayley Fox

L.A. Zinefest will be held upstairs from The Last Bookstore in Downtown.

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — The L.A. Zine Fest is coming to Downtown this weekend in a true celebration of paperback liberty. The six-hour festival will be held in The Last Bookstore and the floors above it in the Spring Arts Tower.

The Zine Fest celebrates the original, paper-based zine - lovingly labored over by the creators of those floppy pamphlets of poetry, photos, comic strips or whatever else DIY-ers can photocopy onto paper.

"Were just trying to encourage people to take a look at the fact that print is still alive and it's fun to sit down and make something with your hands," said Rhea Tepplim, one of the festival's organizers.

To clarify, the definition of a zine is: "a noncommercial, homemade publication usually devoted to specialized and often unconventional subject matter."

In a digital world full of computers, the zine fest is about interacting with people face to face, said Tepplim, and not waiting for approval from mainstream media to publish your own writing or artwork.

"Fold the paper, use a glue stick, use a staple gun and pass it around to your friends," she said.

From 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. this Sunday there will be more than 85 vendors selling and trading zines along with a variety of other small press publications. KXLU DJs will be spinning and Henry Rollins will interview V. Vale of Re/Search Publications, "the godfather of self-publishing."

There will be a discussion/workshop led by the all-girl Grrrl Zines A Go-Go about zine history and culture, as well as a discussion panel with prominent local entrepreneurs who own alternative L.A. spaces like The Smell and Pehrspace.

The all day festival caps off Zine Week, which took place Feb.5 to Feb.11 across L.A., and included button-making, zine blowout sales, concerts and more.

If you're not zine-d out after all of this, L.A. Record is hosting an afterparty complete with live screen printing and bands such as Neverever and Cold Showers.

The Zinefest will be held 453 S. Spring Street, on the second floor of the Spring Arts Tower